Abstract

Friday, June 3, 2016

Alzheimer's in the news, everywhere

This past
Monday I did a news search for “Alzheimer’s disease,” and in two-thirds of a
second my search turned up approximately 581,000 results. And this was on
Memorial Day, presumably a slow news day. The lead
item, which appeared on Forbes’
website, came with an ungainly headline: “New Research Uncovers a Possible
Cause of Alzheimer’s Disease That Is Both Surprising and Promising.” (In an
earlier era, when space was limited, and editors were paid reasonably well to write
sharp headlines, the title might have been “Research suggests possible cause of
Alzheimer’s.”)

But what about the other 581,000 search results? Are we
being buried under information that makes it harder for researchers and
investors to gauge potential winners? In mid-May, the Boston Globe reported on the opening of a 43,000-square-foot “Foundational
Neuroscience Center” in the heart of Cambridge’s biotechnology district.
“There’s a group of people who don’t know about the Foundational Neuroscience Center,
but they will,” Eric Karran, a founder of the neuroscience center told the
Globe, sounding a bit like Donald Trump. “And we’re going to cure that terrible
disease…. We will find drugs for Alzheimer’s disease and, when we do, that will
be truly transformative,” Karran declared.

Charlie Baker, Massachusetts’ popular governor, highlighted
his mother’s hereditary dementia during his 2014 campaign. “My mom knew this
was coming all her life and she faced this head on,” a brother of the governor
told the Globe. “There was no denial.
There were times, certainly, when she was frustrated and angry, but who
wouldn’t be?”

The New York Times
in early May provided exhaustive coverage of the disease, which an estimated
5.4 million Americans have been diagnosed with. The early-onset version, which
accounts for roughly 200,000 instances of the disease, can strike as early as
the late forties. I experienced initial symptoms at 51.

Yet being relatively youthful has its benefits: My cohorts
tend to be in overall good health, and daily vigorous exercise of at least 30
minutes is said to be the best means of slowing the disease’s advance.

The front end of the Baby Boom generation (defined as
people born from 1946 to 1964) is swelling the legions who now have Alzheimer’s,
a significant majority of them women. While many people can manage reasonably
well in the early stages of the disease, all signs point toward a burdensome,
if not ghastly, future—and not necessarily only for spouses. A remark that I
heard at a conference last month has stayed with me. One young woman who was
caring for a parent mentioned that the duty was a heavy burden on the
daughter’s finances. The last thing I would want to leave my family with is a
legacy of debt.